According to the Association of Lebanese Banks (ABL), the value of cleared checks recorded a yearly decrease by 2.46% to reach $66.56 Billion (B) by December 2018. Likewise, the total number of cleared checks fell by 2.81% during the same period to stand at 11.88 M.
In details, while the volume and value of cleared checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds respectively grew by 2.33% and 2.12% in 2018, to stand at 4.70M and $22.13B by December 2018. On contrary, the number and value of foreign currency-denominated checks declined by an annual 5.91% and 4.59% to 7.18M and $44.43B, respectively. As such, the dollarization rate of cleared checks slipped from 68.24% in 2017 to 66.75% in 2018.
It is worthy to note that the number and value of returned checks recorded a significant rise in 2018 by 19.75% and 13.66% to settle at 280,603 checks and $1.63B, respectively.
For the month of December 2018 alone, the volume and value of cleared checks decreased by 10.03% and 12.45% to 982,664 checks and $5.48B. The value of checks denominated in foreign currencies (representing 63.06%% of the total) and in Lebanese Pound went down by an annual 16.27% and 5.07% to $3.45B and $2.02B, respectively.
Value of Cleared Checks by November in Millions of USD
Source: Association of Banks in Lebanon